Review: Monster Combine TD (3DS eShop)

Tower Defence is one of the more underrepresented genres on the eShop across both systems, with the major available title being Plants vs. Zombies. Monster Combine TD competes with this fan-favorite series by using similar gameplay mechanics combined with cards and magic. Sadly it seems a victory isn't in the cards for this title, as it doesn't quite capture the true magic of tower defence.

The plot is certainly simple enough- you're only teaming up with a janitor in a separate world to defeat armies of monsters led by kids attacking a school. Each entrance to the building is under attack, with five potential rows of attack in front of each door. Enemies will each walk down one of these five rows, and your job is to protect the school from invasion.

If this sounds familiar, you'd be correct- Monster Combine TD shares the same basic setup with Plants vs. Zombies. Where they differ is in how you summon defenses, from four different stacks of cards. Each card reveals a monster when flipped, which can then be summoned onto the battlefield. If you didn't want a particular monster, you can shuffle the deck, which causes the deck to have to reload.

Waiting times after monsters are summoned or decks are shuffled are long, and you'll likely just sit watching enemies advance towards the school as you wait. Seeing as cards are drawn randomly, you could end up with four useless cards at first, meaning you almost cannot mount a comeback.

The randomness of cards combined with the delay in reshuffling causes most battles to be lopsided messes. It seems to be you either have a great setup and obliterate the enemy or you lose before having a chance to lay a finger on the opposing forces. Trial and error then ensues, insuring that you leave more frustrated than you'd expect.

To help out in battle, you can summon spells, such as lightning or defense up, to help reduce the impact of getting a bad hand of cards. Sadly these spells don't do much at all, and also suffer from long load times. The combat in Monster Combine TD has great intentions, but isn't as fun as it could be due to unstable difficulty on both sides.

Adding on to the mediocre battles is the fact that Monster Combine TD has somewhat odd graphics. The backgrounds and images look nice, but tend to clash somewhat with the monster art. Nothing is really out of place, but it doesn't quite match either. The music behind the battles is also mediocre, as is the roughly translated plot- which contains a few grammatical errors itself.

Monster Combine TD is akin to a playthrough of itself in which you draw four useless cards. The rest of the deck might be fantastic, but the glaringly obvious is simply not good enough to do. Sadly the developers didn't quite work out the kinks with Monster Combine TD, resulting in a game that rewards and punishes you seemingly randomly.